In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Replacement DJ
"I want it to be very clean, and very tight, then I will feel very shiok!"
- Genshi, referring to his own DJ sets. (hur hur)

Courtesy of John C.
I had planned to spend my Sundays chilling out on my balcony, watching the rain fall smoking the four cigarettes that I promised to keep to a day. Or watch TV, or DVD, or go practice rack-focusing with my SLR, or blog, or whatever I felt like doing... I meant to relax. At 5+ in the late afternoon, while I was hooked on to a riveting American war drama (no, not Band of Brothers, though I heard the DVD set is due out tomorrow *hint*), my mobile rang from upstairs. I ran up to my room to pick it up before the fellow on the other side of the line gives up.
It was John Chiong.
"Chris, what are you doing tonight ah?"
"Dunno yet, what's up?"
Some DJ decided to boycott the Closing Festival at the Esplanade, and John was asking me to fill in the 2-hour slot.
"x-bucks."
"Okay."
So last minute. I had to pack my record bag, which involves some planning like what kind of music should I play, which track goes first, which ends the set, estimation of duration, mixing possibilities... all with no time to do a dry run on my own decks. Progressive house then, the easiest of them all to figure out... By the way, all these preparations usually takes me hours or days, depending on the importance of a set. For example, for the Sonic Edge DJ-led worship, Rueben and I work out which tracks to use for one whole month before Sonic Edge itself.
The Esplanade people seemed very thankful of my presence. I think it's because they didn't know what else to do. Can't blame them, they got so many things to do.
"As long as you make some noise can already," said one of them.
Cool... actually, not so cool. The decks and mixer were from Audiosports Proshop, which means, it's all Vestax. Sure, I love that mixer. It's a really nice and great mixer which I've always wanted from the time I started doing techno for real. But the decks... too many buttons... I had to screw up my first 20 minutes just to figure out how to turn off a Quartz Lock feature, with which I would have screwed up my entire 2 hours. But it's okay. It's alright. I figured out all the controls and saw the set through. On top of all these, they didn't provide the following: styli and slip mats. Standards demand that every venue has to provide the DJ with mixer, decks, styli and slip mats. The only things the DJ should bring are his/her records and his/her headset. Luckily, I brought my own styli but I still had to use two of my not-so-worthy records as slip mats (by the way, I read somewhere that records themselves are better slip mats than normal slipmats).
It wasn't hard to DJ for 2 hours. That's pretty common. In fact, I'm considered lucky to have two hours. Nowadays, small-time DJs get only a half-hour or, at the very most, 1-hour set. The problem was that I haven't done 2 hours straight in a long time, so it's a little strenuous on my concentration level and my back. Several times during the set, a few parents came up and asked me questions like "When is the show going to start?", "Can you start the show now?", "Can you turn down the volume?". My answers to each of these questions: "Check with the organiser, I'm not the organiser.", "Check with the organiser, I'm not the organiser." and "Check with the organiser, I'm not the organiser."
I'm pretty satisfied anyway, because just for appearing and making noise and not having to have to please anybody, I get x-bucks. Plus, I thought, after figuring out the controls of the decks, I did a pretty tight set, considering that I never practice at home anymore (even for fun), unless it's for Sonic Edge. John and I went to celebrate with a Japanese dinner, which I gladly gobbled down in hunger. After that, we stayed a little while more to catch the fireworks and fish monster show... pretty cool. Nice scenary. Pretty tired, I waited for a cab at the taxi stand for half and hour before I got one.
Finally. Can sleep in some more.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
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